For two decades now, since announcement of its release on May 13, 2000, and release of its full contents the following month, the rumors have stubbornly persisted. In the secret corridors of the Vatican, in corners the public never sees, powerful forces worked to conceal the true Fatima secret. The stories flowed with special fervor when Rome finally revealed the full contents of the message given to Lucia dos Santos more than eighty years before.
There have been mutterings of a Vatican conspiracy. Dark influences, say some, had and have taken the power out of the message.
Is this possible? Could — would — authorities really have altered the famous secret?
It seems unlikely.
Sources close to the situation — and to Lucia — say that the version given to the public is indeed the authentic one, that it naturally progresses from the previous messages, and that there has not been the slightest indication that anyone manipulated Sister Lucia or altered what she had written. They point out that the seer was videotaped reviewing what the Vatican was to release and has never indicated even the slightest hesitation with what has been publicly represented in her own handwriting.
For the secret to have been altered (at least recently) would have taken the complicity of Pope Saint John Paul II, which makes a conspiracy theory all the more improbable, and Benedict XVI, who as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger wrote the analysis of it in the official release document.
Pope John Paul II was intimately familiar with the secret, which he studied while recovering from his gun wounds in 1981, and, simply put, would not allow a fraud to be perpetrated.
Could it have been done without his knowledge?
Could someone have slipped it by him?
The answer to that too appears to be no. The Pope was still on top of his job and well aware of what was being said and done in the world. Despite a body addled with Parkinson’s, visitors described him as in command of his faculties. Moreover, the secret flows organically — with great symmetry — from the two previous Fatima secrets. Consider:
In those previous parts Mary had prophesied that “the good will be martyred,” and, indeed, in the third secret, the vision includes martyrs.
The previous secrets said the Pope would “have much to suffer,” and in the third secret, as revealed by the Vatican, an image was given of the Pope being shot.
The previous two secrets emphasized the dangers of Russia — and, indeed, the third secret has the image of an angel about to set the world on fire with a flaming (nuclear?) sword.
The symmetry is not only present but a work of beauty.
“Based on Sister Lucia’s interviews in conjunction with the Fatima message and the secret, you get a perfect image of what all of this really entails,” claimed an informal Fatima historian who served as a translator for Sister Lucia. “Anybody will see that the third secret could not be anything else. It fits perfectly.”
The question, then, perhaps (and we have always respected those who argue that part of the secret may be missing), is not whether the secret is legitimate, but what it refers to.
Some believe the flaming sword relates to a nuclear war that almost occurred in 1985. One could see it also as plague. In the fifth or sixth century, an angel appeared above what is now Castel Sant’Angelo near the Vatican, sheathing a sword as a sign that chastisements ravaging Rome (including bubonic fever) were at an end.
In this line is the curious fact that two Fatima seers, Jacinta and Francis Marto, died in the horrid 1918-1920 flu pandemic.
Has the secret all played out, or does it have implications for the future?
Has Fatima been totally fulfilled? Or do we now move on to the secrets of Medjugorje?
Those whose focus is Fatima believe the secret may still have future pertinence.
“It’s an image that refers to the past, the present, and the future,” claims Evaristo. “In Sister Lucia’s opinion and my opinion it doesn’t hold itself to that particular event but can be used to interpret both that [nuclear] event, other past events, and other future events.”
The late John Haffert, co-founder of the Blue Army, which is centered on Fatima devotion (and has millions of members worldwide), agreed that the Vatican released the actual secret but that it may pertain to more than just the tensions of the past. “I think this is finally saying, ‘deadline,’ the sword is there, Our Lady is holding it back,” he said. “She said at Akita (Japan), so far, I’ve been able to hold it back by offering the passion of my Son to the Father, in union with victim souls, who joined their offering of passion. And now what do we see? The angel with a sword of fire about to strike the earth and Our Lady holding it back. It requires a lot more study, but the bottom line is that it’s very serious.”
[resources: Jacinta: Flower of Fatima:
